Olympic Years and Boards Fears

You guys. It’s an Olympic year. Rio 2016. I don’t know how many of you know this, but I friggin’ love the Olympics. I’m not really that patriotic any other time, there’s just something about the USA’s best of the best going to compete against the world. And- even better everyone gets to see the runners that I love perform on the world’s stage.

It always surprises me that the best of the best of America’s runners train together. You would think they would hide in their respective corners of the country and conceal their earth-shattering workout times and world class coaches and not let anyone know their secrets. In reality, its quite the opposite. They gather in Flagstaff like Amy Cragg and Shalane Flanagan, or Portland, or Boulder and take training trips up to altitude together. They run their tune up races stride for stride with each other. Its a pretty great example of how no one truly succeeds on their own. They push each other, help each other come back from injuries and pregnancies–yeesh!- faster than anyone would think possible.

Once they make it to the World Champs and Olympics these runners face the reality that they are now competing against their best friends, sometimes roommates, and running partners for the gold metal. But, they all know they never would have qualified without their teammate pushing them there.

My class is freaked out about boards. So freaked out, in fact, that our school cancelled a previously mandatory class this semester to make room for a mandatory board review class. Today, during that class, one of our professors told us how the last class that got a 100% board pass rate managed to pull it off. It was simple. They decided they weren’t going to let anyone fall back. They saw to it that everyone was going to do their practice questions, put in the work. We are eventually going to be competing against each other for residencies- but this is not the time for that. We all have to pass first. Its like making the US Olympic team together before you line up at the start and see which runner has what it takes to take it all the way to gold that day.

We are all starting from different places. Some of us are seasoned marathoners just following our routine that’s always given faithful results. Some of us are transitioning from really great 10k performances to the almighty marathon- and hoping to be able to manage the mileage. Some of us cough-me-cough-cough are like Kara Goucher when she first went pro, who has been on the elliptical 4 hours a day for months doing no real high-impact work and instead of getting somewhere, got a stress fracture in her femur. Yes, that happens. The point is that we get everyone out there on the roads, putting in miles and hitting their splits.

I want to tell everyone that my class didn’t let anyone bow out of the race early. I want to tell everyone that even though some of my teammates are better than me, that we all helped each other get on Team USA. Those that fell or got injured, were lightly nurtured back onto their feet and shown that they have what it takes to still finish strong.

I’ve found my resolve. Let’s do everything we can to get there.

The Olympic Trials Marathon is February 13th. It determines who’s going to Rio. Our boards are scheduled throughout May and June. That is our qualifying race.